Boldly Beautiful

Text by Eva Pavithran. Photograph by Joy Datta

Meet Kalki Koechlin, Dev D’s feisty Chanda

When Kalki Koechlin moved to Mumbai two years back, she ensured she left her photographs with every decent production house in the city. That’s how UTV contacted her to audition for Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D. “They were convinced about my acting skills but my Hindi was dreadful,” says the debutante, who trained with actor Karan Makhija on her Hindi diction for a month. The sexy newcomer admits she found it intimidating to work with a spontaneous actor like Abhay Deol but “it was also great fun”. Apropos the controversial subject of the film (it’s based on the Delhi Public School MMS scandal) she says, “I researched and tried to understand what it must have been for a school kid to be stuck in such a mess. She was naïve, young and one stupid mistake changed her life forever.” Though unembarrassed about portraying her on screen herself, Kalki admits her mother, who is deeply into Hindu mythology, is a little concerned about the film’s subject. “But my parents trust and respect my decisions.”